The Escape
by Cindy Lucy
Summary: Years after Hogwarts, a frightened mother clings to her crying baby on the dark streets of London, trying to escape a man. Very short ficlet.


"Hush little one," a frazzle-haired woman whispered urgently to the fussing bundle in her arms, rocking it back and forth in a feutal attempt to calm it. But the infant continued to wail and wave its tiny legs and arms awkwardly, scrunching up its button nose in discomfort. 

"Please, they'll hear you and then take you away," Hermione frantically plead, perspiration forming on her intense brow from fear as well as the summer heat. And as if the child could understand the dire situation at hand, her cries ceased and she gazed up at her mother with her glistening silver-blue eyes, suddenly contented. It was like the very hand of God had reached down and commanded the raging storm of the baby's cries to ebb. 

Hermione enhaled deepily in gratitude and held the bundle tightly to her chest, quivering slightly. Now she had a chance. A chance to escape and save her most precious commodity. Her daughter. She hurried through the dark moonless night, across a deserted London street lit only by a single lamppost on the distant corner. If she could just make it to street corner, she could call the Knightbus and they would be saved. 

She looked nervously over her shoulder, gripping the child harder as she slipped into the shadows. She could not let them be found. As she was about to reach the safety of the post, the light began to flicker as if struggling to keep itself glowing for the scared woman and child below. But it finally gave up and died out. Hermione's breath caught in her throat as she and the child were now completely enveloped in the silent darkness.

A terrible feeling overcame her and the very air around her seemed to drop in temperature. Her exhalations now came out in quick puffs of mist, as it would on Christmas morning. A sinking feeling filled Hermione's stomach. They had found them. As the very thought struck her, four hooded creatures emerged from the shadows, hovering menacingly over the ground.

Her head began to swirl, to echo with sounds and memories of the past. Dark ones that had been hidden to retain some sense of sanity. Ones Hermione had tried so hard to forget. She screamed and fell to her knees clutching at the now wailing child as voices she prayed to God she would never hear again pranced around her mind univitedly. 

Images toyed with her mind. They were replaying in her head, mocking her and what had happened. Draco Malfoy was once again coming towards her with the manic gleam in his eyes. He was backing her into the same stone cold wall, the inanimate object she cursed as it stopped her. Kept her from running. She was screaming once again for him to stop as his icy, boney fingers trailed down her face and to her exposed neck. The hooded figures stepped closer and the memories became more intense. 

Hermione's face screwed up in emotional agony as memories of Draco Malfoy taking her innocense raged in her head, that dark night in the astronomy tower. And suddenly she spiraled back into reality as she felt something ripping the bundle from her arms. Hermione clawed at the darkness around her, trying to wound whatever it was stealing her daughter from her. She could not let the only joy of her life be taken from her. She lunged forward at the shadow before her but found she was being held back by four scab covered hands. Hermione's piercing scream cut through the air as the dementors pull back their hoods revealing their dismembered faces, leering down at her with avid hunger. 

Lips closed around her own and soon her soul was sucked out, leaving her body quivering and twitching behind. Now all that was left of the child's mother was an empty, unconscious shell and the infant screamed louder as if she knew of her aloness.

A form began to emerge from the shadows and moved toward the child. "Give her to me," he said sharply to dementor, moving into the newly replaced light. The man with the platnum blond hair swept the child away from the creature and held her up to his face. His lips twitched slightly before a wicked smirk poured over his lips. "So this is my daughter," he said curiously. "The afamed Seer prophesied to be born from sin."


End file.
